BOOKS: Bringing Up Bogie's Baby

Bringing Up Bogie's

LAUREN BACALL: BY MYSELF Knopf; 377 pages; $10.95

George S. Kaufman of Broadway saw it. Diana Vreeland of Harper's Bazaar saw it. Director Howard Hawks not only saw it but developed and packaged it for millions of entertainment-starved Americans emerging from the empty frying pans of the Depression into the fires of World War II.

This nascent "it," a combination of glamour and whatever it is that makes cookies tough, belonged to a teen-age girl from New York City, born Betty Perske and metamorphosed by Hawks and Warner Bros., publicity...